I admit it; I’ve been avoiding my blog. I’m working, painting, and I feel overwhelmed by the amount of material to cover (despite my handy timeline). I told myself I was still processing the road trip, but honestly, writing is processing. I won’t process fully until I write. I’ve decided to break it down into chunks, a few states at a time.

Colorado

My sister Emily and I stayed in Denver with a couple we had never met (not the last time we’d pull that risky business), Kris and Greg. We arrived after a full day of driving, our longest stretch yet. Traffic was awful, or so we thought at this naive beginning, and we were starving and irritable. We were not sold on Colorado. Oh, how silly we were.

We rose to 6,500 ft in a land where things were suddenly measured by their altitude. We thought we were pretty high up. We were impressed by our ability to adapt to life with less oxygen.

Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO. If we weren’t left breathless by the elevation, this did the trick.

Words will do no justice. Dispatch put on a great show, but it wouldn’t have mattered who was on stage.

I began falling in love. With rocks.

The next day we went to Garden of the Gods, where my growing passion for red rocks was fueled by dry heat and beauty like this:

After a shower and a delicious dinner made by our hostess Kris, we went to a second show: RATATAT at Ogden Theater. Great music, holograms, and a bar atmosphere. Completely different vibe; similar odor. (Emily observed later as we passed a dead skunk in the road, “It smells like a Dispatch concert.”)

As we left Denver that weekend and headed west, I experienced a terror to rival 23 years of fears. It was just a road, and its name was Loveland Pass.

6,500 feet? Nothing.

This road forced us up 11,990 feet. The Continental Divide. My white knuckled, violently shaking hands were the only little suction cups holding our tiny car onto the earth. That earth, which has always been below me, jumped miles downward around every twisty turn. The road was populated by semis, which apparently were too tall to take the tunnel and seemed far too clumsy to be on this Wile E. Coyote mountain path. My body beat itself with forceful shivers while my mind scolded, “WHY DID YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!”

About the ArtistMolly Moser currently resides in Des Moines, Iowa, where she finds lots to love in the people, the cultural events, bike trails, water, and farmer's markets. She continues to study art and to paint, draw, and take photos. Molly hopes to move west to attend graduate school.

Molly’s paintings explore the relationships, emotions and interactions that occur between families, friends and partners, humans and nature. She creates interior spaces to tell these stories through the personal objects they contain.